We’re green with envy over Designboom‘s summer offices on the island of Sardinia, west of their home base in Milan. Seeking to get out of the city for the summer, the Designboom team tackled a DIY project they’ve been dreaming about for years – they built an office out of shipping containers! We’re not sure what makes us more jealous – the fact that they get to work in Sardinia with views of the ocean, or that they get to work in awesome repurposed shipping containers.

Building permits in Sardinia are hard to come by and require jumping through a lot of hoops, so until they could fulfill the requirements Designboom opted for a temporary solution. Three 20-foot shipping containers were modified to create a temporary live-work situation for the team over the summer – complete with running water, electricity, high-speed internet, and air conditioning. Two containers are set at a 90 degree angle from each other with an outdoor kitchen and dining area set up at their junction. The third container operates as the office’s bathroom with a shower, composting toilet, washing machine, and a sink. The project is not quite finished, but the team hopes to complete it next summer.

The containers were outfitted with sliding glass doors behind the cargo doors and a glass main door on one side that provides natural daylighting and cross ventilation. When the winds blow strongly up from the sea, due to the position of the containers the cargo doors can be opened to create a wall for the dining area. No insulation was used on the containers, but they were painted with SUPERTHERM® ceramic paint, which improves the reflectivity of a surface, thus reducing solar heat gain. After a few coats of this ceramic paint, the containers stay much cooler, and they hardly needed the AC at all.

Hey Designboom! Any chance we can work on a collaborative project next summer? Check out more great pics over at Designboom.